Prof. Mohammed Arkoun

The IBNRUSHD Prize for Freedom of Thought was presented
for the fifth time since its foundation in 1998. On December 6th
2003 the Algerian Scholar, professor emeritus of Sorbonne University,
Mohammed Arkoun, received the prize for his services in searching for a
genuine Arab reason and enlightenment.

An independent jury of Arab
intellectuals from different Arab countries singled out the prize winner out
of 8 candidates from 5 Arab countries who were nominated after the public
announcement. For short biographies of this year’s jury in English see http://www.ibn-rushd.org/English/Jury-03-E.htm

Farouk Abbushi, vice-chairman,
held the welcome speech. By involving many intellectuals in the procedure of
candidature and choice of prize winner the fund, he said, was able to get
together many Arab intellects of different nations for this distinguished cause. All candidates have rendered
outstanding services to the dialogue between tradition and modernity,
reinterpreting the past, call in
question ideals,
correcting false images and putting assumedly proven events into new light.
For his speech (German) see http://www.ibn-rushd.org/Deutsch/Begr-D.03.htm

Not only is the prize an
acknowledgement of Akroun's work, Prof. Wild said in his laudatio, it also
has a symbolic value, the price winner is chosen to lead the way into the
future, to show this is how one should precede in Europe and the Arab Islamic
world. He underlined one characteristic that Ibn Rushd and Arkoun have in
common: In their search for truth both men did not hesitate to consult
foreign sources, the most modern scientific methods of their time. Ibn Rushd
was not afraid to study translations of Greek texts for solving philosophical questions. He was criticized for his Aristotelism.
Similarly, Arkoun did not hesitate to refer to modern philosophers of the
West in his Islamic studies, Pierre Bourdieu, Jaccques Derrida, Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Karl Marx, Clifford Geertz and others. See Prof.
Stefan Wild’s laudatio

In his speech, the prize winner Arkoun talked about ways of dealing with present problems and what we
can learn from the past and especially from Ibn Rushd. There is still the
phenomena of modernitywe have
got to deal with, he said. We should make it to the starting point, from
which we analyse Arabic culture historically and critically. It is not enough
to adapt Ibn Rushd's methods blindly.

In the Middle Ages Islamic
scholars developed rules to prove that one hadith is true, another is false, a
Koranic verse should be understood this way, another that way. This is what
is called fundamentalizing. This is how it is still done today, no new
methods have been developed to adapt to the needs of modern times, he said.
We have even lost the simplest ability of mental exercise. The situation is
disastrous. But we shouldn't just adapt Ibn Rushd's methods, his book Bidayat
al-mugtahid wa-nihayat al-muktasid for example is written from the Maliki
point of view only.

Arkoun pointed out that it is important to deal with the phenomena of religion, to understand it
logically and that it is also important to deal with the phenomena of
violence, on which Arkoun said: Violence is a dimension that belongs to the
human nature. It is nurtured by ideas taught at schools from small age.
Children are confronted with the absolute authority of often ignorant
teachers. We should therefore inform the young generation on the phenomena of
violence. For violence has got a political value we cannot ignore. All
revolutions, uprisings, struggles for liberation after the Second World War
are based on violence. This way violence produces heroes and leaders, who
become head of states and leaders of their people.

On the deficiency of the Arabic
language Arkoun said: languages can become a prison to its speakers, it lays
down limits. One book written in French would take 30 books to write in
Arabic, because the Arabic language hasn't got enough terms needed for
specification. Most Arab authors use the word ustura for myth. This false
translation caused a lot of problems for Arkoun, when he gave a lecture on
the myth in the Koran in Algier.

Finally, Arkoun remarked: “The
thing which clashes together, is not a clash of civilization - I prefer not
to name the man who claimed this and has become to many something like a
prophet - no, rather it is the clash of institutionalised ignorance. There is
no society, no system of thought, that does not produce its own ignorance.
Ignorance happens unnoticed, we don't feel that we are ignorant. It is
present in all societies, as in all Arab societies, since
we have left the path of enlightenment and indulged ourselves in ideological
wars in which free thought was not welcomed any more.”

See Muhammed Arkoun’s full speech
in Arabic and in German translation:

Distinguished diplomatic and academic
guests attended the festivity: the Ambassador of the Arab League and the
Ambassador of Algier, Salem Quateen and Bencheich and some representatives of
the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among the German academics came Prof.
Werner Ende, Prof. Ulrike Freitag and fellows of the renowned
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. An author and a poet were also present:
Raschid ad-Daif and Adel Karachouli. Many guests came from far: Aachen,
Frankfurt, Munich and London.